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And later still, after Lady Macbeth’s sleepwalking and handwashing scene, Angus will say of Macbeth: ‘Now does he feel / His secret murders sticking on his hands’. LADY MACBETH: Yet here’s a spot. DOCTOR: Hark! she speaks: I will set down what comes from her, to satisfy my remembrance the more strongly. LADY MACBETH: Out, damned spot ...
- Lady Macbeth
Lady Macbeth is widely regarded as one of the most...
- William Shakespeare
By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University) If...
- Lady Macbeth
Lady Macbeth enters, holding a candle, but asleep. Lady Macbeth keeps rubbing her hands as if to wash them while saying "out, damned spot" (5.1.30). Then Lady Macbeth seems to relive her attempt to convince Macbeth to kill Duncan, concluding with the words: "Yet who would have thought the old man to have had so much blood in him" (5.1.33-34)?
Quick answer: In Act 5, Scene 1 of Macbeth, Shakespeare uses images of light, sleep, and blood to highlight Lady Macbeth's deteriorating mental state.She fears the dark (carries a candle), cannot ...
- Summary: Act 5: Scene 1
- Summary: Act 5: Scene 2
- Summary: Act 5: Scene 3
- Summary: Act 5: Scene 4
- Summary: Act 5: Scene 5
- Summary: Act 5: Scene 6
- Summary: Act 5: Scene 7
- Summary: Act 5: Scene 8
- Analysis: Act 5: Scenes 1–8
At night, in the king’s palace at Dunsinane, a doctor and a gentlewoman discuss Lady Macbeth’s strange habit of sleepwalking. Suddenly, Lady Macbeth enters in a trance with a candle in her hand. Bemoaning the murders of Lady Macduff and Banquo, she seems to see blood on her hands and claims that nothing will ever wash it off. She leaves, and the do...
Outside the castle, a group of Scottish lords discusses the military situation: the English army approaches, led by Malcolm, and the Scottish army will meet them near Birnam Wood, apparently to join forces with them. The “tyrant,” as Lennox and the other lords call Macbeth, has fortified Dunsinane Castle and is making his military preparations in a...
Macbeth strides into the hall of Dunsinane with the doctor and his attendants, boasting proudly that he has nothing to fear from the English army or from Malcolm, since “none of woman born” can harm him (4.1.96) and since he will rule securely “[t]ill Birnam Wood remove to Dunsinane” (5.3.2). He calls his servant Seyton, who confirms that an army o...
In the country near Birnam Wood, Malcolm talks with the English lord Siward and his officers about Macbeth’s plan to defend the fortified castle. They decide that each soldier should cut down a bough of the forest and carry it in front of him as they march to the castle, thereby disguising their numbers. Read a translation of Act 5: Scene 4
Within the castle, Macbeth blusteringly orders that banners be hung and boasts that his castle will repel the enemy. A woman’s cry is heard, and Seyton appears to tell Macbeth that the queen is dead. Shocked, Macbeth speaks numbly about the passage of time and declares famously that life is “a tale / Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, / Sign...
Outside the castle, the battle commences. Malcolm orders the English soldiers to throw down their boughs and draw their swords. Read a translation of Act 5: Scene 6
On the battlefield, Macbeth strikes those around him vigorously, insolent because no man born of woman can harm him. He slays Lord Siward’s son and disappears in the fray. Macduffemerges and searches the chaos frantically for Macbeth, whom he longs to cut down personally. He dives again into the battle. Malcolm and Siward emerge and enter the castl...
Elsewhere on the battlefield, Macbeth at last encounters Macduff. They fight, and when Macbeth insists that he is invincible because of the witches’prophecy, Macduff tells Macbeth that he was not of woman born, but rather “from his mother’s womb / Untimely ripped” (5.8.15–16). Macbeth suddenly fears for his life, but he declares that he will not su...
The rapid tempo of the play’s development accelerates into a breakneck frenzy in Act 5, as the relatively long scenes of previous acts are replaced by a flurry of short takes, each of which furthers the action toward its violent conclusion on the battlefield outside Dunsinane Castle. We see the army’s and Malcolm’s preparation for battle, the fulfi...
The last scene, for there should be another, beginning at line 35 of the eighth scene, shows Malcolm in Macbeth's stronghold, "compassed by his kingdom's pearl," and points forward to a new era of peace and happiness in Scotland.
The Sleepwalking Lady Macbeth by Johann Heinrich Füssli, late 18th century. (Musée du Louvre) The sleepwalking scene is a critically celebrated scene from William Shakespeare's tragedy Macbeth (1606). Carrying a taper (candlestick), Lady Macbeth enters sleepwalking. The Doctor and the Gentlewoman stand aside to observe.
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These incriminating words are overheard by the Doctor and a lady-in-waiting. Analysis. The staging of this scene is made clear by the first ten lines of the scene. The gentlewoman's description of how Lady Macbeth has sleepwalked in the past acts as a stage direction for the actress playing Lady Macbeth. Her agitated reading of a letter is of ...
